Solecast: Kill the Activist in Your Head with scott crow

“This
is another draconian measure to actually criminalize dissent in the
United States,” said Scott Crow, a former Antifa organizer and author.

“Because
the law, even if it doesn’t explicitly state ‘leftists who mask up,’
that’s who the largest potential target of the law is,” he said, “far
more than white nationalists.”

The term “Antifa,” short for
“anti-fascist,” is used to refer to a loose coalition of individuals
with left-leaning political views that often fall outside of the
mainstream Democratic Party’s platform.

The group has no
figurehead or official governing body, but members — some of whom turn
to radical or militant tactics to make their views known — generally
oppose the inequality of wealth by corporations and discrimination
against marginalized communities. They often wear black and obscure
their faces while protesting.

The Antifa movement’s profile
has significantly risen in recent years, especially after members
clashed with self-described “white nationalists” in Charlottesville,
Virginia, last summer — a day that ended in tragedy when a James Alex
Fields Jr. allegedly drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters,
killing one demonstrator, Heather Heyer.

Crow said the bill is
an attempt by lawmakers to avoid tackling the issue of hate speech and
instead address a “symptom” of it by targeting protests.

“Instead of dealing with that, they’d just rather deal with this,” he said, “which is to put a band aid on something.”

Unmasking the leftist Antifa movement Donovan’s office sent out a fact sheet that pointed out other instances in which Antifa activists exhibited violence, including an instance in February 2017 where they turned up to protest at a speaking event held by right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulous at UC Berkeley.

Donovan’s
spokesman Patrick Ryan also pointed out that the bill would simply add a
section to federal civil rights statutes to include a penalty for
wearing a mask.

“My bill expands upon long-standing civil rights
statutes to make it a crime to deprive someone of
Constitutionally-guaranteed protections while masked or disguised,”
Donovan said in a statement sent to CNN.

“Americans have the
natural right to speak and protest freely; it is not a right to throw
Molotov cocktails and beat people while hiding behind a mask.”

But regardless of whether the bill becomes law, Crow said it won’t stop protesters from wearing masks.

“If they take away the right to mask up,” he said, “people will still do it anyway to fight against authoritarianism in any form.”